d place, but
the transfer was made and Adrian lingered by the osier paling, to
observe at close range this subjugated monarch of the forest.

"Oh! for a palette and brush!" he exclaimed, while Pierre walked away.

"What would you do with them?"

Margot had followed the lads and was beside him, though he had not
heard her footsteps. Now he wheeled about, eager, enthusiastic.

"Paint--as I have never painted before!"

"Oh!--are you an--artist?"

"I want to be one. That's why I'm here."

"What? What do you mean?"

"I told you I was a runaway. I didn't say 'why,' before. It's truth.
My people, my--father--forced me to college. I hated it. He was
forcing me to business. I liked art. All my friends were artists. When
I should have been at the books I was in their studios. They were a
gay crowd, spent money like water when they had it, merrily starved
and pinched when they hadn't. A few were worse than spendthrifts, and
with my usual want of sense I made that particular set my intimates. I
never had any money, though, after it was suspected what my tastes
were. Except a little that my mother gave me."

Margot was listening breathlessly and watching intently. At the
mention of his mother a shadow crossed Adrian's face, softening and
bettering it, and his whole mood seemed to change.

Their talk drifted from vexing subjects to merry anecdotes of Adrian's
childhood, in the home where he had been the petted only brother of a
half-dozen elder sisters. But while they laughed and Margot listened,
her fingers were busy weaving a great garland of wild laurel, and when
it was finished she rose and said:

"It's getting late. There'll be just time to take this to the grave.
Will you go with me?"

"Yes."

But this was another of the puzzling things he found at Peace Island.
In its very loveliest nook was the last resting-place of Cecily
Romeyn, and the sacred spot was always beautiful with flowers, or in
the winter, with brilliant berries. Both the master and the girl spoke
of their dead as if she were still present with them; or at least
lived as if she were only removed from sight but not from their lives.

When Margot had laid the fresh wreath upon the mound, she carefully
removed the faded flowers of the day before, and a thought of his own
mother stirred Adrian's heart.

"I wish I could send a bunch of such blossoms to my mother!"

"How can you live without her, since she is still alive?"

His face hardened again